What is the best CPU for games like CIV4?

[Ariminio]

I dunno, close to 2 seconds doesn't seem unreasonable with a top of the line i7. My 5 year-old Athlon X2 does 18-civ huge map turns in ~10 seconds, and from the top of my head, a 3 GHz i7 should be close to 3x faster per core.

That would be great! But the 10s figure on the old Athlon makes me guess this is probably in the BC times, and not in the end when it gets slow and crowded?

But in general, if the new CPU is 3 times faster than my current one, would the turn times be roughly a third of what I have now, or is that not a feasable calculation?

 

[Genocidicbunny]

the 10s figure is probably for mid to late game. Even my old P4 could do 2-3 seconds in the BC ages.

A Q9550 running at 3.4ghz can do 3-4 second turn times in the late era. A Core i7/i5 at the same speed would be about 30% faster, so its pretty easy to get 2s turn times in late era.

 

[Fëanor]

My i7 920 cant run Civ4 with HUGE maps and lots of Civs at decent speeds, but lets not forget that the game was releases before desktops began using multi-core processors (although i would have really appreciated if they added support for them with patches or the expansion).

Also, Civ4 can be played with good speeds with a slightly smaller map and a dozen civs without taking much away from the playing experience.

Its not like Supreme Ruler 2020 or Hearts of Iron 3, which while being release years after the introduction of Multi-threaded and Multi-core CPU's, do not support these technologies. Resulting in an atrociously slow performance that seriously detracts from the playing experience.

 

[3 EMS]

Murky wrote:

What if you already have a socket 478 mb but have a slower processor?

Its not just the CPU socket that has changed. Memory is up to DDR 3 now. Graphics are PCi 2.0 now. Most hard drives are Sata now. If you are in a position of needing a faster CPU for that MB its a good time to think about completely upgrading to newer technology.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Murky wrote:


Its not just the CPU socket that has changed. Memory is up to DDR 3 now. Graphics are PCi 2.0 now. Most hard drives are Sata now. If you are in a position of needing a faster CPU for that MB its a good time to think about completely upgrading to newer technology.

QFT. If you have a S478 or a S939 motherboard, I would advise to just dump the whole thing next time you need an upgrade. You will end up spending much less money for more performance.

 

[civ_king]

No, a Core 2 Duo at ~2.4GHz is going to be faster than a Pentium D at 4GHz.

Is this like how a Power PC 2GHz core could run ring around an Intel Pentium 4 at 4GHz?
more efficient clock cycles?

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Very much so. Each new architecture since P4 has brought improvements, so each CPU can do more per clock.

 

[Fëanor]

Giant roundup: 146 Intel and AMD processors!

So if money is of no concern you should get the Intel Core i7 980X (for over €900)

If you want Enthusiast like performance without paying exorbitant prices your choice is between the €209,- Intel Core i7 920 and the €240,- Intel Core i7 860.
The i7 920 is a Socket 1366 CPU so while it is some €30 less the cheapest motherboards costs over €140
The i7 860 is a Socket 1156 CPU which means that you can get a motherboard for as little as €70
Besides being overall cheaper the i7 860 also has native support for better memory (While overall cheaper, Dual Channel DDR3-1333 performs as good in real world applications as Triple Channel DDR3-1066) which means that if you are not going to Overclock your system its the better choice (Overclockers should definitely go for the i7 920).

If you want good performance at a decent price the Intel Core i5 750 can deliver it for €170 (Also a Socket 1156 CPU)

If you have a tight budget but are unwilling to compromise on performance you should get a AMD Phenom II X4 965 for €150, Socket AM3 Motherboards go for as little as €45.

 

[Ariminio]

That is very informative, I am leaning towards the I7-860 now, 30% better than the Phenom in Anno 1404, which is probably closest to Civ4 among those tests!

 

[innonimatu]

I still think none of the i5 and i7 are good value for the money. If those benchmarks show anything is that the price differentiation created by Intel around larger cache sizes is just a way to get costumers to pay far more than they need for nearly the same performance. Even the higher clocked and very cheap Pentiums E* can compete with the "high-end" parts.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

The Core i5's are your best value out of all of the processors. Thing about CPU's is that while value is important, minimum function is too. A Pentium 3 for a couple dollars may be the best value, but it'd be useless as it would be too slow to run anything. You need to set a minimum boundary for performance and look at CPU's that at least meet that.

 

[Fëanor]

Perhaps if you look strictly at half a decade old games like Civilization 4 a Pentium is still "good value" but if you look at little bit forward (since Civ5 will be out in half a year) I'm really not sure how a €80 Pentium E6600 would be better value than a €170 i5 750 since the i5 is roughly twice as fast, meaning that you will be able to play Civ4 a bit faster and Civ5 a lot faster. While with the E6600, even if you had a HD5970 or a GTX480 (which i would be bizarre since those are really bad "Value") your system would be hopelessly limited by the CPU's serious limitation/inability to keep up.

 

[Zelig]

Perhaps if you look strictly at half a decade old games like Civilization 4 a Pentium is still "good value" but if you look at little bit forward (since Civ5 will be out in half a year) I'm really not sure how a €80 Pentium E6600 would be better value than a €170 i5 750 since the i5 is roughly twice as fast, meaning that you will be able to play Civ4 a bit faster and Civ5 a lot faster. While with the E6600, even if you had a HD5970 or a GTX480 (which i would be bizarre since those are really bad "Value") your system would be hopelessly limited by the CPU's serious limitation/inability to keep up.

I think you're overestimating the difference CPU makes on gaming. Civ5 is going to be far more CPU bound than the average game, since turn-time is going to be more important than fps, but for most games, CPU speed is almost not relevant:

With a Radeon 5870:

 

[Fëanor]

I'm not sure how a GPU performance bottleneck in action oriented games is of relevance to the discussion of "What is the best CPU for games like CIV4?".

The only interesting thing about those benchmark is that apparently in Lost World the €220,- E8600 and the €250,- Q6700 are limiting the limiting factors on those settings, while the €170,- i5 750 can keep up.

 

[3 EMS]

Feanor wrote:

I'm not sure how a GPU performance bottleneck in action oriented games is of relevance to the discussion of "What is the best CPU for games like CIV4?".

CPU bottleneck comparison.

The only interesting thing about those benchmark is that apparently in Lost World the €220,- E8600 and the €250,- Q6700 are limiting the limiting factors on those settings, while the €170,- i5 750 can keep up

Which you obviously pick up on.

The card and its settings stayed the same. The only thing changed in those benches were the CPUs. Except for Crysis (depending on settings) that 5870 could render those games very easily.

 

[stormbind]

I play on a netbook powered by... an atom!

Needed to adjust the config to get the videos smooth.

 

[Fëanor]

CPU bottleneck comparison.

Which you obviously pick up on.

The card and its settings stayed the same. The only thing changed in those benches were the CPUs. Except for Crysis (depending on settings) that 5870 could render those games very easily.

CPU Benchmarks are made with much lower settings (like in the review i linked) so that, unlike in those benchmarks, systems are not bottlenecked by the GPU (in-)ability to run the selected settings.

Those benchmarks just says that a €100 Athlon II X4 635 has enough juice to not bottleneck a HD5870 in most GPU demanding games, which is something that's utterly irrelevant to this thread.

 

[3 EMS]

@ Feanor - I clicked on your link and see where you are comming from. My E8400 is getting low on the list but still acceptable for single or double threaded applications.

 

[Murky]

I would like to run 32-bit games like Civ4 and have Fraps recording my game at the same time.

What would be the optimal setup for that?

 

[V. Soma]

Hi

I am to get PC for Civ5 and considering the CPU options...

i5 750 definitely seems to be a good one,
but there are other things:

I see that AMD Athlon II x4 630 does quite good for its low price,
especially on chess software Fritz 11, which is multithreaded, just like civ5 would be!

Benchmark Data on Fritz 11:

- i7 920: 10383
- AMD x4 965: 8266
- i5 750: 8241
- AMD 630: 6702
- i3 530: 5359

AMD 630 is best as price-wise...
630 is ca. half the cost of i5 750 or AMD 965, and i3 530 is alo more costly.
Naturally, it all boils down as what you feel enough and how much money you have...

AND A FINAL CANDIDATE:
I read that i7 860 is scoring a bit more than i7 920 in Fritz 11!

So i7 860 may be quite a good choice for civ5 - hm...